To be transformed.
The frescoes on the cupola of the dome, replete with golden icons that twinkle faintly in the candle light, embrace the crescendoing chorus, imbue it with ethereal beauty, and cast it back down to us as if from a sublime host.
My entire sense of self is subsumed in the sonorous sensuality of song, an a cappella expression of emotional purity that only the young and naïve can achieve. The chorus fades now, and I hear only my own voice, a sweet sixteen-year-old tenor, as if from a distance.
Este viene a dar a los muertos vida,
y viene a reparar de todos la caida.
Es la luz del dia a que este mozuelo,
este es el cordero que San Juan dijera.
The chorus then rises again, enveloping my consciousness, caressing, enflaming.
Afterward, we shuffle off of the risers and wander around, greeting the nuns and monks of the Salamanca cathedral, and I sense that I am being regarded oddly. The choir director pulls me aside. Where did that come from?, she asks. But I do not understand the question, and only smile shyly in response.
It will be many years, in another life, and in another country, before I will understand what it is to be transported--to be transformed--by music. And when that day comes, I will know with regret that because I now understand it, I now can no longer live it.
My entire sense of self is subsumed in the sonorous sensuality of song, an a cappella expression of emotional purity that only the young and naïve can achieve. The chorus fades now, and I hear only my own voice, a sweet sixteen-year-old tenor, as if from a distance.
Este viene a dar a los muertos vida,
y viene a reparar de todos la caida.
Es la luz del dia a que este mozuelo,
este es el cordero que San Juan dijera.
The chorus then rises again, enveloping my consciousness, caressing, enflaming.
Afterward, we shuffle off of the risers and wander around, greeting the nuns and monks of the Salamanca cathedral, and I sense that I am being regarded oddly. The choir director pulls me aside. Where did that come from?, she asks. But I do not understand the question, and only smile shyly in response.
It will be many years, in another life, and in another country, before I will understand what it is to be transported--to be transformed--by music. And when that day comes, I will know with regret that because I now understand it, I now can no longer live it.